Employee and employer perspectives on an ethnically diverse workforce: a case study from facilities management organisation

Changing demographics and open borders in the European Union have changed workforce dramatically. The growth of migration and globalisation as well as aging population in the UK have caused workplaces to become diverse (Podsiadlowski et al, 2013; Boehm et al, 2014; Walker, Brewster and Wood, 2014; Rosenauer et al, 2016; Madera, Dawson and Neal, 2017; Van Assche et al, 2018). Thus, studies on workforce diversity are becoming very relevant and hence this research is taken place with the aim of this research is to contribute to understanding of ethnic diversity in the workplaces. The research idea is not new as there is plenty of literature on workforce diversity and cultural differences, however this research will be extremely relevant due to increasing change in workforce demographics in the UK. The UK, like many countries around the world, is associated with high rate of foreign-born labour (Meeussen, Schaafsma and Phalet, 2014; Mason, 2018) and by conducting this research, it will provide readers with practical insights on managing ethnically diverse workforce not just from employee perspective but also from employer side. As mentioned by Laurence, Schmid and Hewstone (2018), experiences and perceptions in the workplace is an overlooked subject. Therefore, I feel it is essential that my work continues this area of study. This research will explore the relevant literature that has been published over the last couple of years and critically analyse it, and the data will be collected using various methods (both primary and secondary data collection) in order to provide practical implications. Also, this research is interpretive in nature and the facts that “interpretivists emphasise the importance of language, culture and history” (Saunders et al, 2016: 141), only highlights rationalisation of this research